Season Preview: The Colts

1. Barry first time we have spoken to you this year so let’s go back to the end of last season.  How big was the player turnover at the end of 2014?

This was something that we focussed on fairly heavily last year.  We had roughly a third of the playing group graduating to seniors, a third of the playing group stay and a third of the group comprising of new players.  It wasn’t as big as it was the year before.

2. How have the players gone over the course of the preseason?

Because we were able to only move a third of them on and with a fair amount of experience with the players that were left there, the preseason has been very good from our point of view.  Brock Fleay took over from Sam Mainwaring as our strength and conditioning coach and has done an outstanding job.
Being lighter bodies we have managed to get them into the gym and do some heavy running on the track.  We are quite pleased with the way the fitness has gone this year and where they boys are at, at the moment.

3. Which players have stood out in your opinion?

There have been a couple of boys that have stood out.  One of those boys is Brad Pattison who is getting an understanding of what colt’s football is like.  Last year he was in the system as a PSA player and managed to get a game late in the year but really struggled.  He went away and got himself fit and has worked really hard over the preseason and unfortunately he got a broken nose against East Fremantle on the weekend but up to that point he has been the outstanding one for me.

A couple of others have been Cody Ninyette and Quinton Narkle who have been very good on the track.

4. Has there been a specific focus over the preseason? Like ball movement or implementing a different game plan?

It’s very similar to last year our game plan where we are intending to press reasonably heavily.  That may change with some changes to regulations as far as colts go.  Such changes are having to keep four players in each defensive or forward half at all times.  We haven’t really though focussed on anything much different to what we did last year but really what has happened is that our fitness level has come up.  In doing this our skill level increases and this allows us to concentrate on our style of play.

5. You had a good win against Subiaco but lost to East Fremantle by 10 goals.  What positives did you take out of the preseason matches?

We took out quite a lot of positives out of the preseason matches.  Obviously on the weekend going down by close to ten goals against East Fremantle was not the result that we were looking for but we had some players highlighted to us and some deficiencies highlighted to us which is fine as that is what preseason games are all about.  The Sharks actually only outscored us by 16-points after quarter time.  We have actually started slow in both games and gave Subiaco a five goal head start before we were able to get over them.  I think it’s just a matter of a young group only really playing together for the second time, so results at this point don’t mean a lot but there were some real positives from the first game to the way that they played and the structures they stuck to.  In the second game they didn’t stick to the structures and what we were asking them to do so hence we got that result.

6. So the team at this stage needs to improve on sticking to structures and not giving opposition sides a fast start?

Obviously you never want to give sides a fast start and in saying that yes we need to stick to structures and game plans and that’s a big thing for younger players to get a handle on and understand coming from community football where there is not such an emphasis on that.  At community level it sometimes can be more about the individual winning the football.  We are quite happy for them to do that but you have to play team football at this level to and structured football to make sure that you have the results that you want.

7. You had your season launch last week, how was that?

It was an outstanding success with roughly 150 people there.  We have had 41 local community players come through this year and nine PSA players so we have a squad of around 50 for 2015.  All the parents, grandparents and relatives all turned up to support the team and we were really happy with the turnout.

8. Who is in the leadership group this year?

Our leadership group consists of Matthew Taylor who is our captain, Ben Cable who is our vice-captain, Chapman Jones who is our deputy vice-captain and then there is another four players in Daniel Horan, Frank James, John Levien and Mitchell Browne.

9. Are there any new members of the coaching staff this year?  If so who will be looking after what?

We have had one change and that was because Beau Wardman moved on and took on the head role as coach of the Peel Thunder colt’s team.  Coming on board is Shaun Clifford who previously played at the Perth Football Club and he will be our backline coach.  At the moment he is a teacher at the Darling Range Sports College and he has quite a heavy role in the football department there.  Other than that Glen Davies and Scott Stanton are back on board this year as well.

10. If you could pinpoint something, what would you say would be the main difference between the Perth team of 2014 and the Perth team that will take to the field against Swan Districts on Saturday?

The main difference will be that this group will be a lot fitter.  We struggled to finish games off last year, especially when we got on a bit of a role during the year.  We were still winning games but we were getting beaten in the last quarter.  Our focus has been going as hard as we can in the last minute of the game as we do in the first minute.  We are really focussed on being fit and being able to run out games.